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Related Concept Videos

Somatosensation01:33

Somatosensation

The somatosensory system relays sensory information from the skin, mucous membranes, limbs, and joints. Somatosensation is more familiarly known as the sense of touch. A typical somatosensory pathway includes three types of long neurons: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary neurons have cell bodies located near the spinal cord in groups of neurons called dorsal root ganglia. The sensory neurons of ganglia innervate designated areas of skin called dermatomes.
Tactile and Chemical Senses01:27

Tactile and Chemical Senses

Tactile senses encompass touch, temperature, and pain, each mediated by specific receptors. Touch receptors detect mechanical energy or pressure against the skin. Sensory fibers from these receptors enter the spinal cord and relay information to the brain stem. Here, most fibers cross over to the opposite side of the brain. The touch information then moves to the thalamus, which projects a map of the body's surface onto the somatosensory areas of the parietal lobes in the cerebral cortex. This...
Sensory Perception: Organization of the Somatosensory System01:11

Sensory Perception: Organization of the Somatosensory System

The somatosensory system is the central and peripheral nervous system component that senses and processes touch, pressure, pain, temperature, and body position or proprioception. The process of sensation takes place at three levels:
The receptor level:
The receptor level is the first stage of sensation. It involves the detection of a stimulus by specialized sensory receptors. The stimulus must arrive within the receptor's receptive field. Next, the receptor converts the energy of the stimulus...
Sensory Modalities01:15

Sensory Modalities

Sensation typically is the process by which the sensory receptors and sense organs detect stimuli from the internal and external environment and transmit this information to the central nervous system for processing.
General senses refer to the broad category of sensory information detected by receptors in the body and can be further grouped into somatic and visceral senses. Somatic sensations include touch, pressure, temperature, and pain and are essential for navigating our environment and...
Sensory Functions of the Skin01:16

Sensory Functions of the Skin

The skin is the largest organ of the human body and plays a crucial role in our sensory perception. It contains a vast network of sensory receptors that contribute to the skin's protective function by perceiving physical, biological, and environmental cues and generating relevant responses.
There are two main categories of receptors on the skin: capsulated and non-capsulated. The non-capsulated ones are mainly the pain receptors. The capsulated ones can be further categorized based on the...
Introduction to Special Senses01:26

Introduction to Special Senses

Sensory receptors play an integral part in comprehending our external and internal environments. They receive diverse stimuli, converting them into the nervous system's electrochemical signals. This conversion occurs as the stimulus alters the sensory neuron's cell membrane potential, instigating the generation of an action potential. This action potential is subsequently transmitted to the central nervous system (CNS), which integrates with other sensory data or higher cognitive functions.

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Haptic/Graphic Rehabilitation: Integrating a Robot into a Virtual Environment Library and Applying it to Stroke Therapy
13:44

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Haptic perception: a tutorial.

S J Lederman1, R L Klatzky

  • 1Department of Psychology, Queen's University, Kingston, ON, K7L 3N6 Canada. susan.lederman@queensu.ca

Attention, Perception & Psychophysics
|October 6, 2009
PubMed
Summary
This summary is machine-generated.

This tutorial introduces human haptics, exploring the sense of touch through peripheral receptors and perception channels. It covers object properties, spatial layout, and emerging topics like affective touch and neural plasticity.

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Design, Fabrication, and Administration of the Hand Active Sensation Test (HASTe)
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Last Updated: Jun 19, 2026

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Area of Science:

  • Neuroscience
  • Human Sensory Perception
  • Haptics

Background:

  • The sense of touch is crucial for interaction with the environment.
  • Human haptics is a rapidly advancing interdisciplinary field.
  • Understanding haptic perception requires knowledge of sensory receptors and processing pathways.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To provide an introduction to human haptics for graduate students and researchers.
  • To review the peripheral sensory receptors involved in touch.
  • To describe the 'what' and 'where' channels of haptic perception.

Main Methods:

  • Review of peripheral sensory receptors (skin, muscles, tendons, joints).
  • Description of research on 'what' channels (object/surface properties).
  • Description of research on 'where' channels (spatial layout perception).

Main Results:

  • Haptic perception involves distinct pathways for object properties and spatial information.
  • Peripheral receptors provide the foundational input for touch sensation.
  • The field integrates diverse research areas including sensory integration and plasticity.

Conclusions:

  • Human haptics is a complex field integrating sensory input and cognitive processing.
  • Further research is needed in areas like vision-touch interaction and affective touch.
  • Applications of haptic research span various domains, including robotics and virtual reality.